


Louisette, or How Danaerie Got His Wings

by transdimensional_void



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fairy!Dan, Fairy!Louise, Fairy!Phil, Fluff, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:57:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3789076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/transdimensional_void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a beautiful, confident fairy lady and her socially awkward, nerdy fairy friend, so just read it and be happy. (I just felt like Dan and Louise’s friendship needed its own fan fiction, okay? There may be just a touch of implied phan.)</p><p>(tw for bug mentions)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Louisette, or How Danaerie Got His Wings

In the dark of the forest under the phosphorescent gleam of a glow-worm bush there stood a tiny hut with walls made of smooth beech bark. In the hut lived three happy creatures: a baby ladybug named Glitter, a handsome, shiny spider named Matthew, and the loveliest of all the fairies, Louisette.

Louisette was much admired by the other fairies for her strawberry and lemon hair and her dewdrop eyes, but most of all they admired her brilliant wings of cat-ear pink all spangled over with golden sparkles. She had grown them carefully and groomed them diligently over many summers, and there was not a fairy in the forest who could claim to have grown better.

Not far from where Louisette’s little family made its home stood the great, crystal palace of the Fairy Queen. Louisette had visited the palace many times, and she counted the Fairy Queen as one of her dearest friends. On this particular twilit evening, having tucked the sleepy ladybug under a leaf and planted a peck on her spider’s smooth cheek, Louisette set out from her homely hut and made her way toward the moonlight towers of the palace.

This was a very special evening, after all, for the Fairy Queen had proclaimed a Fairy Event, and Louisette had heard tell of fruity delicacies and cricket violinists and every sort of lovely thing imaginable. She had carefully chosen her swishiest sunshiny gown made of gossamer spider silk, and she had not neglected to fluff her wings and shine their sparkles. Truly, Louisette was a vision to behold.

Up the moonstone path she trod to the blue and silver palace, joined along the way by all her fairy friends, and it wasn’t long before she was surrounded by a cloud of fluffy, friendly fairy laughter. Louisette smiled and was content.

When she reached the crystal steps that led up to the burnished silver doors of the palace, she had to slow down, for the crystal would be quite slippy under her needlepoint heels. Her friends went ahead as Louisette took her time stepping onto the first stair – and paused for just a space to adjust the sweep of her lemony fringe – so that by the time the two grasshopper guards pulled wide the doors for her, she was walking through them alone.

That was when she noticed him, standing just to the side of the doors, peering out from behind a shimmery curtain at the crowds of chattering fairies passing into the Queen’s throne room. He was a tall and slender fairy, with coffee bean eyes and hair like an oak leaf in autumn, and Louisette had seen him in the palace many times, lurking in the corners and gazing at her with his jittery smile.

“Danaerie, what are you doing behind that curtain?” Louisette cried, “Come join us at the Event!”

And she held out her hand and smiled at him in just the right way to make him smile back and, tripping softly from behind his curtain, take her hand.

“I don’t really like parties,” said Danaerie. “All the other fairies stare at me.”

Louisette had been admiring his tasteful choice of attire – a long-sleeved shirt of finest ant-wing and matching onyx earbobs – but his comment startled her out of these thoughts.

“Why would they stare at you?” She dropped his hand and turned a quizzical gaze on him.

Danaerie’s booted toe traced a circle on the floor, and his teeth began to worry at his lower lip.

“They think I’m silly. Because of my wings,” he finally whispered, and his cheeks turned cherry pink.

Now perhaps it should be explained that among the fairies of the forest there was not a one who was born with wings. Each fairy sprouted from the forest floor smooth-backed and earth-bound, and it was the goal of every fairy’s growing years to cultivate a pair of wings that would dazzle the eye and carry them into the clouds. Some fairies were quick about it and grew wings that worked very well but were on the whole quite plain, and other fairies took their time and spent more summers on the ground but in the end had something magnificent to show for it. Louisette was one of the latter sort, and she remembered all-too-clearly the frustrations of summers passed on the forest floor while her friends were already flitting in the treetops.

This wasn’t exactly Danaerie’s problem, though. Danaerie was already a grown member of fairykind, but unlike all the other fairies his age he didn’t have the slightest wingbump to show for all his summers. 

Some of the other fairies called him lazy or tut-tutted him for putting off his wing-growing until so late, but the truth was Danaerie had simply been unable to make up his mind.

“When I was just a sprout,” he told Louisette, still studying his toes, “I always imagined I would grow a sleek pair of leathery-black dragon’ s wings. But then…” He trailed off, leaving his thought unfinished.

He didn’t have to tell Louisette the story, though. She had heard it all from the Fairy Queen. The Queen had invited Danaerie to live in the Palace many years ago, when he was still in his wing-growing years. Even then the other fairies had thought him a little behind in his wing-development, though no later-blooming than many another. He’d talked a lot back then about how he had realized the ridiculousness of leathery black dragon wings and how now he knew there were no other wings for him than a pair of gossamer rainbow butterfly wings.

When a fairy has dedicated his growing years to cultivating one sort of wings and then –just as his new wings are about to unfurl – decides to start all over again, other fairies are very likely to call him silly. Louisette had never thought of Danaerie as silly, though.

“I’m sure the other fairies won’t be staring!” she cried and took him by the hand again. “They’ll all be far too busy having fun. Come along and curtsey to the Queen with me and then we’ll have a sip of star punch.”

Danaerie still looked uncertain, but Louisette gave his hand a gentle tug and he followed along. And if his large, black spiky boots made disconsolate little scuffing noises as they scooted over the smooth floor stones, Louisette was too polite to point it out.

They crossed beneath an archway of sky-blue crystal before they found themselves beneath the high, vaulted ceiling of the Fairy Queen’s throne room. The wide chamber was aglow with fairies decked out in their finest, wings fluffed and glossed and polished until they shone. Over here a group of Louisette’s friends had circled up to admire one another’s gowns, and over there another group of her friends were dancing to the cricket minstrel’s tunes. Louisette wanted to join them right away, but courtesy demanded that first she present herself to the Fairy Queen.

So she pulled Danaerie’s arm through her own and stepped out onto the length of russet carpet – woven from strands of a fox’s wiry fur – that marked the path up to the Queen’s jewel-encrusted throne.

Even from this distance Louisette could see that the Queen was splendidly bedecked this evening.

“Has our Queen put forth an extra effort this evening, or is that just me?” she whispered to her companion as they made their way up the carpet at a dignified pace. Without realizing she was doing so, Louisette reached up her free hand to pat one of her feather-soft wingtips, perhaps imagining that a frond or fiber had gone astray.

Danaerie’s eyes rose from his boots at last and trailed their way up the room to where the Queen sat on his diamond and sapphire throne. Louisette watched as his pebble-brown eyes scanned from top to bottom and left to right, taking in the fullness of the Queen’s magnificence.

“Queen Philhemina always looks his best while seated on his throne,” was all Danaerie had to say.

Louisette didn’t feel the comment quite did justice to the Queen’s appearance this evening. After all, Queen Philhemina was wrapped in a cape of white Persian cat fur that positively gleamed under the lamplight, and he had clearly taken extra care to shine his hair, and his wings…! Louisette knew her own wings were perfect, but still the Queen’s wings always took her breath away and left her feeling a dab of envy. They were filmy and delicate like a mayfly’s but radiantly iridescent with every color of the rainbow. You could look at them from here and see a blaze of blues or look at them from there and see a riot of reds, or look at them from yet another angle and see a glimmering of greens. Each time Louisette saw Queen Philhemina’s wings she discovered colors she had never known existed before.

The Queen had seen them approaching now, and he was beckoning them forward, his face cracking open in a welcoming grin.

“Fairy Lou, it’s always a pleasure to have you in the Palace,” the Queen called down as Louisette dropped into a curtsey before the jeweled throne. “And I see you’ve coaxed Fairy Dan out from the shadows.”

Louisette cast a glance at Danaerie beside her and saw that he had suddenly become interested in his toes again.

“Go on then, Danaerie. Greet the Queen.”

He didn’t look up from the floor as he wrapped an arm around his front and offered a bow to his Queen. You couldn’t say it was anything less than a perfectly executed bow, and yet Queen Philhemina frowned for a moment as he watched it.

“Well, go enjoy yourselves,” was all he said, though, crossing one white-stockinged leg over the other and beckoning the next fairy forward.

Louisette grabbed Danaerie’s hand again and pulled him off toward the table where the Queen had had a tantalizing array of victuals laid for his subjects to enjoy. Louisette went straight for the brimming bowl of star punch with its fizzy sparkles that always made her nose tingle and her head feel bubbly. She ladled out a generous helping for Danaerie and then made up a cup for herself as well. Danaerie was bent over a platter of cream cheese canapés, apparently considering which to put on his plate. However, as Louisette stood with her two cups of star punch and waited for him to make his selection, it eventually became clear that his thoughts were wandering elsewhere.

“Would you like to join the dancing now?” she finally asked.

His slender shoulders gave a little jump of surprise at her words, and he turned a startled gaze on her. 

“Pardon?” he said.

“I asked if you’d like to join the dancing. They’re–” But as she spoke, she turned to point to where her friends had formed a dancing circle earlier, only to find that they were all fluttering along to the music up near the ceiling now. She paused mid-sentence and closed her mouth and then gave Danaerie her most charming smile. “I heard that the Queen hired a team of glow-worms to light the fountains on the balcony just for this occasion. It must be monstrous beautiful to look at. Would you like to go see?”

Louisette did not know that Danaerie had not only already seen the worm-lit water feature but that he had in fact overseen the entire installment, from the hiring of the lighting right down to each worm’s placement around the balcony. Nevertheless, he agreed to take her out to see what all the fuss was about. When she oohed and ahhed and exclaimed at the the soft beauty of wormlight on water, he couldn’t help feeling a small ripple of pride in his chest. He may be wingless, but at least he wasn’t completely useless.

“Louisette,” he said after a moment, and she gave one last admiring sigh before turning from the fountains to look at him. “I know everyone always says so, but you really do have the prettiest wings in all the forest.”

Her hands crept up to her cheeks to cover her blush, and her wings fluffed out a little as though they knew they were being talked about.

“Why thank you! It’s sweet of you to say so.” Then she quickly added, “And I’m sure someday your own wings will be ten times prettier.”

At that, Danaerie frowned. Did she really think that or was she merely being kind? He never knew quite what to think when people said nice things to him.

“How did you grow your wings so well?” he asked her all at once, not quite managing to keep a wistful note from his voice. Louisette’s wings would never have suited him, of course, but the wonderful thing about them was that they so suited her. Never had he known a fairy who had so perfectly captured her own essence in her wings. “How did you know which wings to grow?”

Louisette took a long sip from her cup of sparkly star punch and then tapped one forefinger against her lips as she thought.

“Well, I didn’t know, not really,” she began, drawing out the words as she gathered her thoughts. “When I was small I always thought I would suit a pair of swan’s wings, pure white with blue shadows, and everywhere I went people would compliment me on how elegant and demure they looked.” A deep chuckle escaped her, and Danaerie couldn’t help smiling at the thought. Swans wings sounded lovely, but elegant and demure would have been an ill-fitting look for Louisette.

“What made you change your mind then?”

“Nothing,” she answered promptly, then added more slowly, “That is, I never exactly changed my mind. But as I worked on growing my wings, I just kept doing all the things I loved the most – stroking kittens behind their ears, and watching the sunlight glitter through the canopy at midday, and laughing with my closest friends – and slowly the image of those swan’s wings faded from my thoughts. 

"Then one day I realized my wings were ready to unfurl, and when I stepped outside and flexed them for the first time, I realized they had turned pink like all the ears of the kittens I had played with, and that they’d sprouted golden sparkles like the sunlight in the treetops, and that they’d become as soft and fluffy as an afternoon spent in laughter with friends.” She shrugged, and the movement made her wings flutter about her like clouds in a brisk breeze. 

“I never meant to grow wings like these, but these are the wings I was given.”

Danaerie was so shocked he couldn’t even speak for a full minute. No one had ever told him anything like that before. He’d always heard that wing-growing was a very serious business that no one should undertake lightly; that it was mainly made up of hard work and careful planning, of cultivating just the right group of people to match your wing-type and choosing just the right wing-model to emulate. No one he’d ever spoken to had suggested that the perfect wings might be achieved by passing more happy afternoons with friends or spending more of his time contemplating sunlight in treetops.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered to Louisette when he at last found his voice again.

“Of course you can,” she replied, and rested her fingertips reassuringly on his elbow.

“Lately I’ve been feeling that my wings might be ready to be opened, but…” He stopped, all at once unable to pull enough air into his lungs. He’d thought the words inside his head many, many times but it was a very different thing to speak them aloud.

Louisette waited, her eyes fixed on his face, her fingertips still lightly touching his arm.

“But I’m afraid,” he said at last. “I- I thought I knew just what kind of wings I was growing, all those years ago when I came to the Palace and decided to grow my wings just like the Queen’s. But…but it’s just like you said. Over time that image faded from my mind, and now I just don’t know. I don’t know what sort of wings I’ve been growing all these years.”

There was a moon out that night, not a full one but a three-parts-of-four moon, and its light was milky white and smooth on Louisette’s face as she smiled and shook her head a tiny bit.

“How do you spend your days, Danaerie?” she asked him. “How have you spent your time since coming to the Palace?”

He looked up at the moon-in-profile and saw there was a little scrap of grey cloud tickling its face.

“I guess I spend most days serving my Queen,” he said after a long time. “He’s very busy, you know, ruling the forest and the fairyfolk. Helping him makes my heart feel warm, like I’ve got a fire burning right here.” He placed one fingertip on his chest, a little to the left of center.

Louisette gave his elbow a squeeze and then, without warning, stood up on her tiptoes and placed a tiny kiss on his cheek. Then she stepped back and graced him with her glowing smile.

“Then I’m sure your wings will be lovely,” she told him.

Louisette’s words made the flicker of flame in Danaerie’s heart suddenly feel like a bonfire. For the first time in a long time he found himself grinning. And then the strangest thing happened. His back-skin began to feel all tingly, right between his shoulder blades. Then the tingling became an itch and the itch became a burning. He wondered for a brief moment if this was what a rosebud felt like on the day of its blooming. Then Louisette gasped, and stepped back further from him, her hands flying up to her mouth.

“Danaerie, your wings!”

Danaerie looked up to his left then quickly turned to his right side as well. Arching high above his head was a pair of enormous wings. For a long moment he couldn’t quite believe that they had grown from his own back. They were glowing, red and orange and golden, their light drowning out the glow-worms’ and turning the milky moonlight to crimson. Danaerie had grown two wings of towering flame.

He gave them an experimental flex, and all around him shadows sprang up and quivered in the bright firelight.

“They’re beautiful,” whispered Louisette. Danaerie smiled. She reached out one hand, and he took it. “Shall we go show the others?”

He nodded, and hand-in-hand they walked inside to join the party.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted on Tumblr, and Louise liked it. :)


End file.
